South Carolina Senate Runoff Kicks Off With Chick-fil-A and Trump Calls

The two-week runoff campaign to decide which Republican candidate will compete in November to succeed the late Senator Lindsey Graham started in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, as each candidate workshopped what their sales pitch should be.

Senator Darline Graham, Mr. Graham’s sister, had holed up at her campaign headquarters in Columbia, S.C., according to two people with knowledge of her night who requested anonymity to describe a private gathering. She discussed next steps on the phone with President Trump while she snacked on chicken nuggets and sweet tea from Chick-fil-A.

Representative Ralph Norman, the vice chairman of the House Freedom Caucus in his fifth term in Congress, was similarly ensconced on the other side of the state. His team released a television ad on Wednesday making the case that he is the only proven conservative in the race.

“You shouldn’t have to guess where your next senator stands,” he says in the ad. “With me, you already know.”

Ms. Graham and Mr. Norman emerged from a special election sprint on Tuesday to succeed Mr. Graham, who died unexpectedly in July. Now the two candidates are jumping into a two-week campaign for an Aug. 25 runoff that will be an even faster-paced foot race.

They defeated a wide field of other candidates in Tuesday’s primary, including Representative Russell Fry and former Gov. Mark Sanford. Ms. Graham is expected to make the case to voters who cast ballots for Mr. Fry, also a close ally of Mr. Trump, that they should choose her if they want a senator who is more aligned with the president. Mr. Sanford and Mr. Norman share a focus on fiscal conservatism.

Whoever emerges from the runoff will face Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee, though the seat is widely expected to stay in Republican hands in the deeply conservative state.

The contest between Ms. Graham and Mr. Norman is expected to center on their conservative credentials, along with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, in a state that voted for him by 18 points. Ms. Graham has already leveraged her status as the only Trump-backed candidate to undercut Mr. Norman, whom Trump may have spurned because he supported Nikki Haley for president in 2024. Mr. Norman has leaned on his hard-right voting record to present himself as the most dependable conservative in the field.

“This is one of the most important decisions that folks in our party have made in a generation,” Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, said in an interview. “There are a lot of people whose preferred candidate didn’t make it last night, and so now we’re going to find out who their second choice was.”

Republican officials in the state have already started to pick sides. Senator Tim Scott, a Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, endorsed Ms. Graham on Wednesday. Mark Lynch, a businessman who ran in the special primary election, endorsed Mr. Norman.

Both candidates are entering the runoff with established political teams. Ms. Graham inherited the tenured political staff of her brother, who had won his primary for re-election before he died of an aortic tear. Mr. Norman ran in the Republican primary for governor in June. While he placed in third, the statewide campaign gave him the name recognition and organization to jump-start his campaign for Senate.

In the primary on Tuesday, he attracted strong support around the South Carolina suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., where he is from, and in the upstate region around Greenville, which is rich in Republican voters.

Ms. Graham, meanwhile, was largely unknown in the state until her brother’s death. While Mr. Trump’s endorsement did not prove to be enough to avoid a runoff on Tuesday, she over-performed expectations, particularly in the Midlands and along the northeast coast.

“The depth and breadth of her support across the state surprised some people,” said Rob Godfrey, a veteran Republican operative in South Carolina. “It’s going to be a test of whether she can run up margins in places along the coast and along the Grand Strand to offset the margins Ralph Norman will have in the upstate.”

On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump spoke multiple times with Ms. Graham over the phone. He lavished praise and offered her advice about next steps, said the two people familiar with her campaign.

“He was literally trying to help plan out the next two weeks,” one of the people said. “It was amazing.”

Ms. Graham has spent little time campaigning in the state, a choice she has blamed on her schedule as a newfound senator. Now that the chamber is in its August recess, she plans to spend the next two weeks talking to voters, she said on Tuesday morning after voting in Lexington, S.C.

On Wednesday night, less than a day after the final sprint began, Ms. Graham is scheduled to appear at her first runoff event: at a retirement community in Mr. Norman’s district.